Human Rights

In a Feb. 6 talk sponsored by International Legal Studies, the Harvard International Arbitration Law Students Association, and the International Law Journal, Emmanuel Gaillard and Yas Banifatemi LL.M. ’97, head of international arbitration and head of public international law, respectively, at Shearman & Sterling, detailed the intricate story behind securing the historic $50 billion award for the Yukos Oil Cooperative against the Russian Federation.

And discussions have continued into the new year about the policy and procedures of police, prosecutors and the community at large.

A former NBA All Star turned humanitarian. Supreme Court justices. Student protests. Take a look at some highlights of the people who visited and events that took place this semester at Harvard Law School.

In an op-ed in the Boston Globe, “Trust in the legal system must be regained,” Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and Yale…

During World War I, about 400,000 “enemy aliens” were imprisoned by all sides in camps on nearly every continent. During that time, Germany’s only exclusively civilian prison camp, Ruhleben Gefangenenlager, became a model of civil functionality.

Until last spring, scores of destitute people—virtually all of them African-Americans—were locked up in the city jail of Montgomery, Alabama, for traffic tickets they couldn’t pay, sentenced to a day in jail for every $50 they owed. They could earn a $25 credit daily by providing free labor, scrubbing blood and feces off jail floors and cleaning buildings.

Benjamin B. Ferencz ’43, known for his role as chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials and for his work promoting an international rule of law and the creation of an International Criminal Court, has been awarded Harvard Law School’s highest honor: the Medal of Freedom.

One year ago, Co-vice Presidents of Harvard Law & International Development Society Maryum Jordan ’14 and Elizabeth Nehrling ’15 reached out to law schools around the world. Their question was simple: Are faculty and students at your institution interested in starting a law and international development student organization?

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program at HLS, which marked its 30th anniversary this year, trains students to represent refugees seeking asylum in the U.S.

On September 19, Harvard Law School hosted a celebration of the 30-year anniversary of the school’s Human Rights Program (HRP), a home for human rights scholarship and advocacy founded in 1984 by Professor Emeritus Henry J. Steiner.

The president of the Republic of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, visited Harvard Law School on Friday, Sept. 26, to meet with Dean Martha Minow and to attend a private lunch hosted by the Human Rights Program.

On September 12, Justice Albie Sachs, who served on South Africa’s inaugural Constitutional Court from 1994 through 2009, visited Harvard Law School for a screening and discussion of “Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa” with filmmaker Abby Ginzberg.

Margaret H. Marshall, Harvard Law School senior research fellow and lecturer on law, will receive the American Bar Association’s 2014 Thurgood Marshall Award. A retired chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Marshall is being recognized for her long-term contributions to advancing civil rights, civil liberties and human rights in the United States.

On June 17, about 200 Harvard Law School alumni and students gathered to mark the 30th anniversary of the Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC). It was a celebration of "30 Years of Social Change Lawyering," and it brought together advocates from around the country and the world.

Five Harvard Law School professors presented a sampling of their innovative ideas in late May at the 2014 Harvard Law School Thinks Big lecture, an annual event that challenges faculty to explain those big ideas in short talks.

Until last month, scores of destitute people—virtually all of them African Americans— languished in the city jail of Montgomery, Ala., for unpaid traffic tickets they…